Prof. Mark Tatge Analyzes Allure of TV's Breaking Bad

October 1, 2013

More than 10 million Americans watched Sunday night's final episode of Breaking Bad, notes a Christian Science Monitor article. Gloria Goodale writes, "The series touched a nerve in U.S. society for several reasons, says Mark Tatge, journalism professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. The fact that the main character is someone who faces many of the same pressures that average people face -- health, job, and income -- means that the show reached the public on a gut level."

However, the main character Walter White's "extreme strategies are a cautionary tale, Professor Tatge says," Goodale reports. "The show’s message is that 'we are on our own to solve our problems and this means that we may have to do unorthodox, even illegal things to solve our problems,' he writes in an e-mail. 'It is a very, very dark view on the current state of our society.' "

Later in the piece, Tatge adds that the show "is a very cynical commentary on where we are at as a society."

Mark Tatge, who is DePauw's Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism, was Midwest bureau chief for Forbes magazine, an investigative reporter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's statehouse bureau, and held positions with the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News and Denver Post. He recently was quoted in another Monitor article.